1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a thin film transistor and method of fabricating the same and, more particularly, to a thin film transistor and method of fabricating the same, in which a seed or a grain boundary does not exist in a junction region.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a polysilicon layer has been widely used as a semiconductor layer for thin film transistor since it has high field effect mobility and may be used in a high-speed circuit and a CMOS circuit. The thin film transistor using the polysilicon layer is generally used in an active device of an active matrix liquid crystal display (AMLCD) and switching and driving devices of an organic light emitting diode (OLED).
Here, the polysilicon layer used in the thin film transistor may be fabricated by a direct deposition method, a high-temperature annealing method and a laser annealing method. The laser annealing method may be used in a low-temperature process and implement the high field effect mobility. However, it requires high-cost laser equipment so that a substitute technology has been widely developed.
Currently, a method of crystallizing amorphous silicon using metal has been widely developed since the crystallization is made at a lower temperature and in a shorter time than that of a solid phase crystallization (SPC) method. The metal crystallization method is classified into a metal induced crystallization (MIC) method and a metal induced lateral crystallization (MILC) method. However, even with the metal crystallization method, the characteristics of the thin film transistor device are degraded due to metal contamination.
Meanwhile, in order to reduce the amount of metal and fabricate a high-quality polysilicon layer, there has been developed a method of fabricating a high-quality polysilicon layer through high-temperature processing, rapid thermal annealing or laser illumination by adjusting a concentration of the metal ion using an ion implanter. In addition, in order to planarize the surface of a polysilicon layer using a metal induced crystallization method, a crystallization method of mixing liquid-phase metal and a viscous organic layer, depositing a thin film thereon using a spin coating method, and annealing the resultant has also been developed. However, even with the aforementioned crystallization method, a large-sized grain and grain uniformity, are still problematic, which is critical in the polysilicon layer.
To solve the foregoing problems, a method of fabricating a polysilicon layer through a crystallization method using a cover layer was disclosed in Korean Patent Application No. 2003-0060403. The method includes: depositing an amorphous silicon layer on a substrate; forming a capping layer on the amorphous silicon layer; depositing a metal catalyst layer on the capping layer; diffusing the metal catalyst into the amorphous silicon layer through the capping layer using laser or heat to form a seed; and forming a polysilicon layer using the seed. This method may prevent unnecessary metal contamination since the metal catalyst diffuses through the cover layer.
However, for a thin film transistor fabricated by the afore-mentioned method, since the region where the seed is formed contains a large amount of crystallization metal catalysts, a lot of traps may be formed. Here, a term “trap” refers to a kind of defect, for example, causing a discontinuous energy band due to existence of a seed or a grain boundary in the semiconductor layer. Therefore, when the traps exist in a junction region, the characteristics of the thin film transistor may be degraded and non-uniform.